1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to systems designed to automatically provide answers to inquiries received over a telephone line and especially to such systems in which the answers are provided in the form of an audible human voice response.
2. Discussion of Related Art
There are many situations in which it is desirable to provide an audible human voice response to inquiries received over a telephone line. These situations include inquiries regarding credit card account balances for point of sale account status checks and other types of credit authorizations, telephone ordering, stock quotations, locator services, pay by phone services, home banking and check guarantee systems. In each instance, the information requested can be stored in a computer data bank and can readily be accessed by a computer terminal under the direction of a terminal operator. A difficulty arises when this information is to be transmitted over a telephone line to a particular requester. The most commonly used method is to have a terminal operator verbally transmit the information. However, this method can be excessively expensive due to the high cost of labor.
Systems have been suggested for eliminating the use of a human operator. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,088,838 to Nakata et al shows a voice response system in which information is fed from telephone lines through a switching network to a receiver. The information is fed from the receiver to a data processor which operates to provide responses. The responses are fed to a voice synthesizer. The frequency spectrum of the synthesized voice is flattened for transmission over the telephone lines.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,013,838 to Tsai discloses a telephone inquiry system in which an automatic, instant response to a mailbox renter's telephone inquiry can be had. To inquire about a mailbox status, the renter calls a number and uses push buttons to enter his mailbox code. The system checks the status of the mailbox in question and informs the caller vocally by a voice response generator.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,800,283 to Gropper shows a credit verifying unit in which information stored on a credit card is read and transmitted to a computer by touch tone signals. The computer evaluates the information and transmits a signal which is displayed visually on a terminal at the point of sale.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,647,972 to Glover et al shows a portable terminal which generates and transmits selected tones over telephone lines to provide input to a computer.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,820,071 to Angus shows a credit card risk evaluation system in which a credit card reader transmits coded information to a central processing unit. The central processing unit evaluates the information and transmits a signal which is supplied to an audio playback device which stores and transmits several recorded messages.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,023,014 to Goldberg shows a credit card verifier which makes use of a computer for answering questions received over a telephone line in the form of tone signals. The tone signals are converted to digital signals and the answered questions are converted from digital to tone signals and transmitted over the same line.
While the patents discussed above show various substitutes for a human operator, none shows a system which is relatively inexpensive, compact and reliable, and capable of easily interfacing with known computer hardware. Many of the systems require point of sale terminals which greatly increase the cost of the system. Other of the systems are so complex as to require a large start-up cost and high maintenance costs thereby reducing their effectiveness as substitutes for human operators.